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I got home a few hours ago from a very quick trip to New England. We left Saturday morning for Boston, met up with my oldest son (who is a law student there), and started eating. With intermittent breaks, we ate pretty much for the rest of the trip. In between, we visited Boston Public Garden, the North End, Newbury Street, the New England Aquarium, caught a ferry ride, visited Harvard and Kenmore Square, went to Newport, Rhode Island, spent many hours on the beach, walked the Cliff Walk, did some shopping, and did I mention that we ate well?

Here are some random thoughts I have about the trip:

If everyone in the world could spend at least three days a year relaxing on the beach, the world would be a much mellower place.

I love the short commutes and easy lifestyle in Syracuse, but there is definitely something energetic about big cities that is a really nice change of pace.

What on earth inspires a man to approach a total stranger on the beach and start preaching to him about how his new acquaintance is destined for hell if he doesn’t believe in Jesus? By the end of the conversation, I was sincerely sorry that I had turned off my iPod.

Harvard is even more impressive in person than it looks in movies.

My unscientific estimation is that every seventh car in Newport is a Mercedes.

If you like pizza (and I believe that includes the majority of this blog’s readers), you owe it to yourself to visit Jimmy’s in Brookline, MA.

The guy sitting outside an Italian bakery in Boston’s North End Saturday night, playing The Carpenters’ greatest hits on his saxophone? He is so going to be a character in one of my books some day.

Ditto for the twenty-something girl who sat outside a clothing boutique in Newport all day yesterday, playing blues on her electric guitar.

The waiter at Russell House Tavern in Cambridge who noticed that I left two bags under our table on Sunday, and who ran out of the restaurant to give them to us before we got too far away, is going straight to heaven.

No matter how much sunscreen you think you’ve put on yourself before you baste in the summer sun on the beach, it’s not enough.

Have you gotten away yet this summer? If so, what are your random thoughts? If not, what are you looking forward to? Chime in in the comments.

2 Responses to Random Thoughts Upon Returning From Vacation

One of these years I’m going to take another vacation; just not sure when. Still, your adventures sound like mine when I do get out of the house and out of town. Probably why I stay in the hotel room all the time or go looking for casinos. lol